Otherside
by Phoenix Spirit Fighter
Summary: AU. Looking back, remembering everything they had been through, there was one thing they could never look past: how it all started with a storm.
1. Chapter 1

**AN: Sorry, I know, I'm so behind on all my other stories! You can blame the Dark Insomniac, she's the one who insisted I post this so you guys have something to read while I'm working on my other ones.**

**Disclaimer: This story is written strictly for entertainment purposes. If you even remotely recognize something from somewhere, I don't own it (except in the case of my original characters.)**

**Summary: They were each looking for a home, a place to belong. But memories were missing, their courage failing in the face of their pasts. And when they needed it the most, the heart to stick together as friends and as a family seemed to all but abandon them. But in the end, looking back, there was one thing they could never look past: how it all started with a storm.**

* * *

Wyatt Cain sighed in aggravation, trying not to lose sight of the road. A semi roared past on his left, a fog of water droplets shearing off its side and coating his windshield even more than the rainstorm already was. The former police officer tugged impatiently at the collar of his jacket; between the frantic sweeping of his windshield wipers and the stifling heat blasting from the vents in his dashboard he was feeling as claustrophobic as he would if he were in a coffin.

It was only through pure will that Cain was able to keep from completely freezing up at that thought, and even as a sudden shake of the truck's suspension snapped him back to reality his grip on the steering wheel tightened as he tried to keep himself focused on the road. He really should have known better than to take to the road when the weather report had called for a thunderstorm, especially one of the blinding rain storms that the Midwest was known for, but he really couldn't stay in that town much longer. It was the same thing all the time; he'd drive until he didn't want to any longer, stop in the first town or city he could and find some place to stay. He'd earn money where he could, doing odd jobs until he felt it was time to move on again. There always seemed to be something he was running toward, or running from, but in the past five years he never seemed to be any closer to finding what it might be.

The road ahead of him had grown dark again, his headlights doing little to cut through the buckets of rain that fell from the sky, and a quick unnecessary glance in his mirrors told him that he was alone on the road. He narrowly missed rolling onto the gravel shoulder, cursing under his breath as he steered the truck back onto the asphalt and seriously questioning his own sanity. Even most of the semi drivers weren't on the interstates tonight; many of them had probably turned off at the small town he had passed almost two hours ago. Two _very_ long hours ago. He sighed again, barely catching a quick flicker of blue outside the passenger window, and nodded to himself. While not his first choice, a rest stop would work until the storm blew over. He watched the lane lines carefully, finally pulling off the main drag and into the parking lot of the small brick building that was sheltered under a dense copse of trees. A few orange-tinted lamps dimly illuminated the building and the parking lot; even as he forced himself to relax he noted that the patch of concrete was, aside from his own truck, all but completely empty. A small silvery figure was parked a few spaces from him, and when he squinted through the thick rain he could just make out the rough shape of a tarp covering what he figured was a motorcycle of some make or another. Casting an appraising glance at the building, he sighed for the third time in the past twenty or so minutes and finally cut the engine, turning off his headlights and grabbing his pack from the back seat.

Running through the rain really had not been necessary; in this type of drenching rain a person got soaked regardless of how long they were outside. Pulling the glass door open, he shook water from his hair and his old leather coat, thankful that he had an extra set of clothes in his pack. He glanced around, looking for some sign of the building's other inhabitant, and spotted a backpack sitting in one corner alongside a folded sleeping bag and a laptop computer. But the small room was otherwise empty except for the vending machines. Striding slowly away from the door, he checked the other corners, even peering through the windows opposite the door in order to check everywhere. It was one of those oddly-arranged rest stop buildings, with wooden dividers splitting up the room for no apparent reason other than to display pamphlets and road maps; if there had been more people around he would have been nervous knowing he couldn't see them all at once. But seeing as how the only other person that _would_ be around _wasn't_ at the moment, he relaxed enough to claim a corner for himself and drop his duffel with a _thunk._

A quiet gasp had him turning quickly and flattening himself against the nearest wall, his hand automatically reaching for the gun he always carried under his jacket before he could even stop and think. The silence that followed was deafening, and as he realized just how ridiculous the whole situation was Cain finally forced his hand to release its hold on his pistol. He took a deep breath; if he had any money to bet he would place it on this other person being just as startled as he was.

"Who's there?"

The voice was a woman's, and he scowled in irritation, rubbing both hands over his face. She sounded young, at least as far as he could tell, and scared out of her mind. Great, that's all he needed; some kid in desperate need of a babysitter.

"Who's there?" she asked again, her voice more forceful though wavering much more noticeably now. Cain suddenly realized that he was standing between this young woman and the only door out of here.

"It's alright," he replied, keeping his voice as calm as possible. No need to scare her any more than she already was. "My name's Wyatt Cain. I'm not going to hurt you. I'm here for the same reason you are, though I have better luck than to get stuck in this mess on a motorcycle."

The girl's laugh was little more than a sharp exhale of breath, and Cain walked slowly back toward the door, glancing around the wooden dividers until he caught sight of her. She had backed into the dimmer light of the restroom's doorway, and her posture tightened as he came fully into her view. She was watching him with wide, frightened eyes that were the color of cornflowers, and he had a hunch that if he hadn't been standing in her way she would have bolted by now. What the hell was wrong with this kid? "I'm sorry that I startled you. I knew there was someone else here, I just didn't know _where_."

The young woman relaxed ever so slightly, and she breathed a bit easier.

"No, it's okay," she replied quietly, taking a tentative step forward. "I'm . . . just . . . a little jumpy. I don't like thunderstorms, especially this kind. I didn't expect someone else to be out here; people tend to stay off the roads during storms." She glanced around the room nervously, as though making sure no one else was there, and Cain watched as she unconsciously pulled the sleeves of her sweatshirt farther down over her hands. The clothes she was wearing were dry, he noted, and so were all her belongings; she had to have been here since before the storm started.

They stood there in silence for a long moment before she cautiously moved back towards her corner, never looking directly at him though always keeping him at the edge of her vision. She was more than a little nervous, he could tell just by watching her, and had half a mind to tell her to sit down and relax before she had an anxiety attack or passed out. He couldn't help but wonder if she was scared of him for some reason, too.

"Do you need me to keep standing here, Kid?" he asked, trying to keep his tone light. She visibly shuddered at the sound of his voice, but shook her head. He had the distinct feeling that this would be like dealing with a very frightened animal; one wrong word or one move that was even slightly too fast would have her running. "Alright," he sighed, though he could already sense his patience wearing thin with this game. "I'm just going to go change, I promise that's all I'll do."

He slowly backed away, not making any sudden moves, and retrieved his duffel from the corner before retreating into the men's restroom. He made certain to create noise as he changed into his dry clothes, wanting her to know he wasn't moving anywhere without her hearing it. Leaving his wet clothes draped over the sinks to dry, he kept his footsteps audible as best he could without making them too loud. The young woman was sitting in her corner, half-covered by her sleeping bag and staring intently at the screen of her laptop. She glanced up at him as he entered the main room again, but quickly looked away and turned her gaze out the window as she pressed herself farther into the wall.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Kid," he sighed. "I'm sorry that I scared you."

"No, it's okay," she said again, her voice quiet, though she still wouldn't look him in the eye. "We just startled each other." She seemed to understand that she was safe near him, that he could have easily attacked her before if he had wanted to, but she was still jumpy.

"Would you feel better if I stayed in that corner, where you can't see me?" he motioned slowly over his shoulder. "Or do you want me over here?" He didn't typically let other people call the shots, not if it would make him uncomfortable, but he figured that she meant him as much harm as he meant her; if she felt safer knowing that she couldn't see him he could grant her that. She glanced at him again, wordlessly looking toward the corner opposite hers before looking back down at her computer. Cain nodded, slowly walking over to the corner and placing his duffel on the floor before sitting down. Now he could tell something was very wrong; most people would calm down at least a little once they knew they weren't in any danger, but this kid still looked like she would jump out of her skin if he made one wrong move. This was about more than just her being afraid of thunderstorms. He frowned slightly, more concerned for the young woman than he thought he would have been.

He reached into his pack, pretending not to notice how she twitched at the sound, and pulled out a couple small bags of trail mix.

"Are you hungry?" he asked quietly, wondering if she had eaten recently and trying not to jump to what was becoming a very obvious conclusion. She must have been a runaway, and judging by how nervous she was he was willing to bet that she had been abused. She looked straight at him, uncertainty flickering across her face, and he held up one of the bags to show her. "You're welcome to it if you want it." She nodded, and he slid it across the floor toward her.

"Thank you."

* * *

"Kid! Kid! It's just me!"

He wanted to go straight up to her, in the hopes that she would see his face and realize where she was, but she was already terrified and the last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt. He kept his distance, his hands held up so she could see them.

She had fallen asleep not long after she had finished her trail mix, and though Cain hated to admit it he was glad she felt safe enough around him to sleep. He, on the other hand, wasn't tired. Even when a sudden flash of lightning had been followed by all the lights in the place going out, he hadn't been able to sleep. He just pulled a flashlight from his pack and went back to reading the newspaper he had bought earlier that day. When his back went stiff from sitting on the floor for so long, he had walked around for a few minutes, glancing out each of the windows. The rain was coming down harder than before, and aside from the bright flickers of lightning every few seconds the interstate was still pitch dark; there were no headlights passing by in either direction. After he finished his newspaper, he had pulled his gun from his duffel and removed the clip so he could clean it.

The kid hadn't been sleeping as soundly as he thought she had been, because in the next moment her panicked voice was shouting and she was up and backing away from him. Now the gun lay forgotten on the floor, and she was huddled in yet another corner and trying to keep at least ten feet between them.

"Kid, look at me! I'm not gonna hurt you!" He tried to keep himself from yelling, knowing how she felt after waking up in an unfamiliar place with a stranger holding a gun. "I'm Wyatt Cain, remember? We're stuck at a rest stop off the highway because it's stormin' outside."

It was almost painful to watch the emotions flicker across the young woman's face, fear fighting for dominance until a vague recognition softened her posture. She was scared out of her wits, but she at least remembered who he was.

"Easy, Kiddo," he murmured, taking one tentative step toward her, but she shied away from him and he stopped. Even the flashlight's dim glow, reflecting off the linoleum floor, was enough to see that she was shivering. "It's alright, I'm not going to hurt you," he repeated. "Do you want me to go back and leave you alone?"

She stared at him in silence for a long moment, finally shaking her head. "Are we going to stay over here until you calm down?"

She shook her head again.

"No."

Well, at least she was talking again.

"Alright. You're in charge here, Kid," he said slowly. He would need to be careful how he worded things until he knew what had her so scared. "What do you need from me?" As worried as he was about the girl, he was almost as surprised at himself for reaching out to a stranger like this. He had never hesitated to go out of his way to help others; it was in his nature, and part of what had made him such a good cop in those few years he had been in the force. But this sort of stuff, dealing with the emotions of people, had never been easy. The few friends that he still kept in touch with often accused him of having no heart, but to him it was more than that. Five years he had been wandering, making a living where he could, and before that it had been those three years as a state trooper for one of the worst stretches of highway this side of the Mississippi. Before that, he remembered nothing aside from his own name and waking up in a hospital and being told he had survived being thrown around by one of the worst tornadoes in more than a decade. Being a cop was second nature to him, which often made him wonder if he had been one before and had made his commanding officer sorry to see him leave after three years. After being a nomad for so long, he didn't really know how to connect with people. There was no point to it, really, if he would be moving on sooner or later.

"Can you stop calling me 'Kid'?" she finally said, lowering her gaze to the ground and wrapping her arms around herself. "My name is DG."

"Okay." Cain was relieved she was giving him at least that much. "DG; what do you need from me?"

DG sighed, and in the dim light he could see her silently battling with herself. She finally stood straighter, keeping one steadying hand on the wall.

"Nothing," she murmured. "I don't need anything from you. I'm just going to go back to bed."

* * *

Cain heard the door close, and glanced over his shoulder as DG's footsteps scuffed down the sidewalk. The girl had never been able to get back to sleep last night, though she had certainly pretended to by burying herself in her sleeping bag. Cain had been up too, puzzling over the young woman and how she had simply shut down. He wasn't one to jump to conclusions, but everything he had seen last night had compounded his belief that she had been poorly treated in the past.

He checked the pressure in the last tire on his truck before turning and watching her load her few belongings on her motorcycle. The storm had broken early this morning, leaving the sky clear and cloudless. Strong winds gusted across the endless fields surrounding the rest stop, and the birds singing in the trees created the perfect picture of an ideal spring morning. But DG was exhausted, and he found himself strangely worried that something would happen to her if she kept going like she was; either she would fall asleep driving or she would make some mistake that would send her straight back to where she came from. He shook his head, gazing out at the interstate. Vehicles were driving by occasionally, but it was the middle of the week and travelers were few and far between. Not that he thought DG would trust any of them to help her if she needed it. The kid might have been scared of her own shadow, but she had a good head on her shoulders and her inability to trust others was probably a good thing for her if she was traveling by herself; while most people would mean her no harm, he had encountered enough of the opposite strain to know how easily a problem could turn dangerous.

Still . . . .

"Hey, Kiddo," he called out to her, not missing how she jumped at his voice. Daylight had done little to calm her fear, though it wasn't as obvious as it had been during the storm.

She turned and glared half-heartedly at him, her blue eyes tired after the long night. It only added to his concern that there could be a dangerous accident in her future. He strode up to her, keeping himself at a comfortable distance so as not to scare her again, though she did tense up and take one step back from him. "Look, DG, I'm just like you. I'm not heading anywhere in particular; I'm just trying to get away from wherever I am."

DG looked startled at this; he figured she probably hadn't realized how many of her tells he had caught onto last night. "I don't know who or what you're running from." Her eyes widened even more, and he crossed his arms. "But I figure it's none of my business to know anyway, because I'd be hard pressed to find anyone in this world who isn't running from something or another. Sometimes running is the only way a person can figure out where to start over." He glanced over his shoulder at the truck; all of his stuff was already packed and ready to go. "I get that you're looking for someplace to start over. There's room for you and your stuff in the truck, and your motorcycle can go in the back, if that's what you want."

They regarded each other for several long minutes. DG was torn, he could see it, but he wouldn't stand around all day waiting for her decision. He had given her a choice; she would have to make up her own mind. She finally dropped her gaze to the dark asphalt beneath their feet, turning and picking up her helmet where she had left it on the seat. Cain nodded, taking her answer for what it was. "You keep yourself safe, Kiddo. I'll see you down the road." He turned on his heel and headed back for the truck. With one last check to make sure the hood was latched and the passenger doors were all shut, he pulled open the driver's door and climbed in.

"Mr. Cain?"

He looked up at her voice, staring at her silently for a moment. Her backpack was slung over her shoulder again, her rolled-up sleeping bag sitting at her feet, and she was watching him uncertainly. She wasn't sure if he had been bluffing or not, but he sensed that she _wanted_ to trust him; she just didn't seem to know how. He reached over to his door, hitting the unlock button.

"Go ahead and toss your stuff in the back seat, then help me get your bike into the back. We'll head out of here once it's ready to go."


	2. Chapter 2

**Okay, to be honest I'm not entirely certain why it took me so long to update this story . . . I've had a number of chapters done for a while. Anyhoo, I'm back in the writing game so this story should be up fairly quickly. Thanks to everyone who reviewed and faved this story so far! I'm having a blast writing this story and I'm really excited about it!**

**Disclaimer: If you recognize it from anywhere, unless it's one of my OC's from another story, it doesn't belong to me. I'm writing this purely for entertainment purposes.**

* * *

Cain spit into the sink, rinsing his toothbrush before setting it to the side. He studied his face carefully in the mirror, mentally reminding himself to shave in the morning, and pulled his sweatshirt on before opening the bathroom door. DG was sitting at the foot of one of the beds, flipping listlessly through the channels on the TV, and she glanced up as he crossed the room and flopped down on the other bed.

"Anything good on, Kid?"

She glared at him witheringly, and he had to keep himself from chuckling. He knew the nickname was growing on her; she just didn't want to admit to it.

They'd been on the road for a little less than two days; last night it had been nice enough for them to pull over in another rest stop and camp out in the truck, him in the bed next to the motorcycle and her in the back seat. They'd been heading north and east since then, passing through Missouri, Iowa, and Wisconsin, and when they had passed by a small town on the shore of Lake Michigan they had agreed to stop and stay for at least a few days. DG had calmed down significantly as they had moved north, though she still jumped at loud noises or sudden movements, and while she still wasn't especially chatty she would at least talk to him.

"Not unless you like musicals," she replied dryly. "We've got 'Sound of Music,' 'Chicago', 'Rent', 'Moulin Rouge' _and_ 'Wizard of Oz.' Other than that, it's all news, infomercials, and crime dramas."

Cain did laugh this time, unfolding the day's newspaper and setting the back sections aside.

"Well, you watch whatever you want, I'm not picky."

She sighed, flipping through a few more channels before finally settling on the news, and stood up to get into bed. It was only out of the corner of his eye that Cain noticed she had frozen in her tracks, but when she stood there for several seconds he looked up from his paper in confusion. At first he thought something on the TV had made her stop, but it was just the weather at the moment, and he frowned as he realized she was staring at _him_. "Kid? What is it?"

"Where did that scar come from?" she asked quietly.

He sighed, self-consciously reaching up to touch the rough line of skin that ran from his left temple almost the full length of his skull. Most people never noticed it; it didn't stand out much through his blond hair. But since he had just gotten out of the shower, his hair was wet and fell away from it more noticeably and made it more obvious.

"Brain injury; I got caught in a tornado about eight years ago, woke up in the hospital after being in a coma for almost three weeks. I had been knocked unconscious; got hit so hard that my brain swelled and they had to open up my skull to relieve the pressure." His newspaper now sat forgotten across his legs, and DG sank onto the edge of her bed as she listened. "I don't know why the tornado stuck with me, why I can remember so clearly being thrown around by that storm; because of where I was injured I lost all my memories from before then. Only thing I could tell the doctors when I woke up was my name."

"What have you been doing since then?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Once I was up and about again, I got a job as a state trooper for a few years; it was a job that came really easy to me, I've always figured that I was probably a cop before I lost my memory. But I found that stayin' in one place made me antsy, like I was bein' watched. I left the force after three years and sold everything except a month's worth of clothes and my truck; since then I've just been driving as I want to, staying where I want and avoiding the places I don't care to see."

"And you don't have anything that might tell you who you are or where you're from?"

"Nothing," he shook his head. "The clothes I was wearing were wrecked, and they never found any I.D. on me or anything. I figured I couldn't have lived very far from where the storm dropped me, from what I was told it was pretty short-lived as far as cyclones go, but the police checked every town within a hundred miles of the place and no one had reported anybody missing." He reached over to the bedside table and picked up his wallet, opening one of the smaller pockets and dumping its contents into his hand. "The only other thing I had was this." He held it out to her and she reached out to take it, turning it over in her hands.

"A wedding band?"

Cain shrugged again.

"Must be; but nobody reported a missing person, much less a missing husband. I don't know if she'd still be alive, or if she might still be looking for me somewhere. I don't know if I'm still the same man she married."

DG held it out to him, and he took it and dropped it back into his wallet. Leaning back against his pillows, he sighed, realizing that was the most he had told anyone about his past in a long time. He frowned slightly. "You remember when I told you yesterday that everyone's running from something?" She nodded. "I'm no different than anyone else, only I don't know what I'm running from. It seems that I just can't handle staying in one place for very long; it's like I'm running toward something at the same time I'm running away from something else."

"I'm sorry."

One eyebrow rose on his forehead at her quiet apology, but he appreciated that she cared.

"Thanks for that, but I think it would be harder if I still remembered anything. As it is, I might as well have fallen out of the sky. There's nothing for me to do except see if my memory comes back."

"But doesn't it make you mad? Knowing that what you had was taken from you?"

"Sometimes; but until I remember anything there's no sense in getting in a twist over it. I don't know what kind of life I had before now. It could have been better, but it also could have been worse. As far as I'm concerned, I'm lucky to be alive and with my brain intact; that tornado could have taken a lot more from me than just my memory."

DG stared at him, though her expression was vague and Cain couldn't quite tell what was going through her mind. He was half-tempted to ask her about herself, to see if she might trust him enough to tell him more than just her name and her age. She had practically leapt out of the moving truck when he asked her for the latter earlier this morning, and after he pulled over onto the shoulder it had taken him a good twenty minutes to get her to calm down. He needed to know, he had explained, because if she wasn't legally an adult he could get arrested for kidnapping and she'd get sent back to wherever she'd come from. All he needed was her age, that was it, and he wouldn't expect her to tell him anything else unless she wanted to. She'd fought him on it, the first outward sign of defiance he had seen in her since they'd met, but had finally given in to reasoning. Eighteen, that's how old she was; eighteen years this past January.

She suddenly seemed to think she was being nosy, and her gaze dropped to the floor before she turned to pull the blankets back from her bed, her cheeks coloring in embarrassment. Wyatt frowned, watching her carefully as he picked his newspaper back up. That whole exchange showed him a completely different DG than he had known from the last couple days. She was more interested in learning about another person than she was concerned about keeping herself at a distance. But she was shutting down again.

"Kid? You okay?"

"Yeah," she muttered, lying down and pulling the covers over her head.

"Anything you want to talk about?"

"No."

He sighed and went back to reading for a few minutes, but stopped and stared at her still form under the blankets. His eyes flickered to her few belongings; her laptop sat on the desk next to the TV, and her sleeping bag was still rolled up and sitting by the door. Beyond that, all she had was her backpack and whatever was inside it. There couldn't be much, he figured; he'd seen her pull out a sketchbook and pencils after they'd finished dinner and were settling in for the night, and he knew there was an extra pair of sneakers buried in there too. Since she carried her computer in her pack as well, that didn't leave much room for clothing.

"I know you were planning to travel by motorcycle," he finally said, exchanging the front section of the paper for the sports. "So for the sake of space and convenience you had to pack light. But as long as you're with me, you've got all the room in the truck that you need. Why don't we go into town tomorrow? You can get some more clothes and we can take a walk by the lake."

She moved around slightly, not answering him right away; Cain wondered if she was pretending to be asleep again.

"Okay," she finally murmured, her voice muffled by the comforter, and he nodded slightly.

DG didn't fall asleep right away; he could hear that her breathing was too shallow for her to be sleeping. He turned the volume down on the TV so that it was just audible and went back to his reading. He didn't try to be silent as he turned the pages, but he did it carefully enough that it wouldn't startle her awake. The kid was already a light sleeper; he didn't need her waking up in a panic again because of something he had done. But her breaths gradually grew longer, and she didn't shift around nervously every time she heard a noise. By the time he finished reading and climbed under the covers on his bed, she was asleep.

He left the TV on, as well as the light next to her bed. He wasn't often one to sleep with the lights on, but he figured the kid would appreciate being able to see where she was if something woke her up during the night. He stopped and stared at her for a moment, the crown of her head just visible under the blankets. _What are you running from, DG?_

The young woman twitched as she slept, murmuring incoherently, and unconsciously pulled her extra pillow close and wrapped her arms around it like a child holding on to a stuffed toy.

"You're alright, Kid," he murmured. "I'm here with you. And as long as I'm here, you'll be alright."


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I don't own Tin Man, any of the characters or anything else you might recognize from somewhere else (unless it's one of my OC's from another story. This story is strictly for entertainment purposes.**

* * *

A sharp wind blew in off the lake, rustling the tall grasses past the beach and the dense forest of pine trees just beyond there. A gull of some sort or another glided overhead, crying out as though there was a storm approaching, and another answered from farther down the beach. But the sky was a clear blue, without a cloud anywhere. Cain glanced over his shoulder, checking on DG out of the corner of his eye, then nodded and reached down into the chilly water of the lake for another stone. With a quick fling of his arm, he sent it skipping over the waves four times before it sank. The kid was just up the beach a ways, as she had been for most of the afternoon, sitting on the old blanket he always carried in the truck. She'd been distant with him again today, no doubt caused by their conversation last night, and he had given her the space she wanted.

They'd still gone into town this morning; even in her quiet mood the kid had realized that adding to her wardrobe was a necessity, and when they found a few clothing shops on a side road that, thankfully, did not cater strictly to the tourists that frequented the town throughout the year he turned her loose and promised to meet her back at the truck in an hour. She'd looked uncertain at first about being on her own, even when he told her he wouldn't be far away, but seemed to sense that he was simply giving her room to explore and had finally agreed. He'd gone to walk through a few stores around the corner, to visit with old friends and to make a few purchases of his own, and when the hour was up went back to meet DG at the truck. She'd put everything in a large cardboard box from one of the stores, exactly as he packed his clothes, and after loading it in the back seat they'd driven to the lakeside edge of town to walk along the boardwalk and public beach. He had caught a glimpse of the surprise that crossed her face when she took in that first full view of the lake, and wondered if she had ever seen it before; or if she had ever even been away from home.

It wasn't terribly cold today, though the water was still chilly, and after a while they'd both pulled off their shoes. When they finished their walk, DG gave no indication that she wanted to leave, so he left her to her own devices while he stayed at a comfortable distance. Her sketchbook lay open across her lap, a graphite pencil dancing quickly across the paper, and from a distance the blank look in her eyes almost made it look like she was in a daze. But, at least her worries of being followed had left her alone here, and as long as he was within a few hundred feet or so of her she seemed largely unconcerned with the world. Cain reached into the water, picking up a few more flat stones worn smooth by the tide, and skipped them across the waves. He really didn't mind this as much as he thought he would; though he had never been wanting for company over the past five years, he found that having DG around set things into a slightly different perspective. Life seemed to follow a different rhythm now. DG was a good kid, from what he could tell; she'd just fallen hard and would need some time and space to figure things out. She looked to him for protection and company, and maybe even for guidance, and Cain knew that he couldn't push her to solve her problems faster. On a different visit here he might have taken a longer stroll on his own then turned in the for the day immediately afterward, but if sitting and drawing was what the kid needed to set her thoughts in order then he could occupy himself with skipping stones for a while.

He walked up the beach a few paces, his gaze following the long path of stones just below the water's surface. He stopped, crouching down to pick up a bright fleck of blue from among the dark stones. Beach glass, rounded and worn like the rocks; it was typically rare along this stretch of beach, but he'd found and pocketed several small pieces on their walk and had a wooden box buried under his back seat that was full of beach glass he had collected. He never quite knew _why_ he collected it, but he figured that with all the oddballs out there collecting stuff he was allowed this one peculiarity. Most of what he picked up today he was planning to give to the kid, anyway; while they were allowed little choice in what they carried with them, due to the amount of space in the truck, a jar or small box of beach glass didn't take up that much room. He thought she might like it, as a reminder of her first glimpse of the Great Lakes; he grinned as he realized he would have to bring her up to Lake Superior in the very near future. He picked up a few more stones, one a solid piece of milky white quartz that he slipped into his jacket pocket with the beach glass, and stood up. DG was up and moving toward him, the canvas satchel she had bought slung over her shoulder and weighted down with her drawing supplies.

As she came and stood at his side, he flung another stone out onto the waves, this time skipping it only twice. He handed her the other, grinning when she took it uncertainly. Her throw was a little awkward, like it would be if she had never tried to skip a stone before, but it hopped over the water once before it disappeared. A small smile played at the corner of her mouth, the closest he had seen her come to smiling, and he was happy to see that she was more relaxed than she had been the past few days.

"You feelin' better Kid?" he asked, reaching down to pick up more stones.

"Yeah . . ." she murmured, taking the rock he handed her and trying to skip it. "I'm sorry about last night."

He paused mid-throw, turning to look at her. But she was crouching down, picking out more flat stones for herself.

"Don't worry about it. You're allowed to ask me questions," he replied, sending his stone flying. "I won't hold it against you for bein' curious; you've got a right to know about me, seeing as how we're travelling together."

DG was silent for another moment, throwing her stone far over the waves as she mulled over what she wanted to say next. She felt safe with him, and trusted him as much as she felt she could, but she still didn't completely know how much of her past she could trust the guy with. She hadn't been wrong when she figured him for a cop, and like every other cop he had clearly picked up on something about her – what had Gulch called them, "tells"? Cain had to know that she wasn't sharing something with him.

"My parents never really liked me to ask them stuff. Any kind of question bothered them, but they really hated it if I asked personal questions or got too nosy."

This was good, he thought; the fact that they were both occupied with skipping stones was making her forget that she was scared, and since he wasn't directly facing her he probably didn't seem as intimidating. He didn't say anything right away; he still had to be careful how he worded things or she could easily take off.

"I'm not your father, DG," he finally said, and she looked at him in shock. She tensed up as fear fluttered through her, taking a small step back from him like she had a few days ago, and he fought to keep himself facing the lake. "If nothing else, I consider myself to be your friend. You can ask me anything you want, and I promise that I'll always answer as best I can."

They went back to throwing stones for a while, skipping some and just tossing others as DG calmed down.

"An old friend of mine owns a store here in town; I went to talk to him while you were shopping," Cain finally said, carefully keeping his eyes on the lake.

DG paused, glancing at him curiously.

"He and his wife live just out of town, and a couple trees on their property fell over recently. He has a hard time getting around, and he asked me to come over tomorrow and split the wood for him. You're more than welcome to come with, if you want. They've got about six acres, most of it is forest, and a big pack of dogs living in their back yard. You can play with them and help take care of them while I'm workin'; I know he'd appreciate it. Otherwise I'll leave your motorcycle for you and you can explore town a little more on your own."

She thought about that for a moment, but neither situation really felt _right_ to her.

"Can I decide later?"

"'Course you can." They both threw their last few stones, brushing the loose sand from their hands. "You set to head back?"

She stared out over the lake for a while; it wasn't quite sunset yet, but the sun was getting low. They'd been out here all day.

"Yeah," she sighed. They hiked their way back up the beach, stopping to shake out and fold the blanket, and when they climbed back into the truck they wiped the sand from their feet before shutting their doors.

"What do you feel like for supper tonight?"

The kid's gaze was fixed out the window, and Cain could sense her closing herself off again. He mentally sighed, guiding the truck out of its parking space and back onto the road.

"I don't know. I'm not really hungry."

"Alright."

The silence stretched on for the drive back to the hotel, and as the sunlight dimmed Cain thought DG might have dozed off. They finally pulled back into the parking lot, and as soon as the truck was parked she unbuckled her seatbelt and pushed her door open. Cain's eyebrows rose on his forehead in mild surprise as she hopped out, and he followed slowly behind her. The way she was acting almost made him think she was angry, but he figured that she was just uncomfortable about something again. He locked his door, shaking his head, and trailed after her into the hotel.

* * *

DG sighed quietly, her fingers itching to actually draw something but her thoughts coming up short as to _what_ she wanted to draw. Not that it had ever been a matter of _wanting_; she enjoyed drawing, really she did, but there were times when it felt more of a compulsion than a hobby. She felt resigned to flip through the pages of her sketchbook, glancing over scenery and staring into eyes she only ever saw in dreams. But they still felt like something more, like they couldn't be just from dreams.

Cain mumbled in his sleep, rolling over onto his back as his unintelligible words turned angry, almost scared, and she stayed still until it seemed like his dream had passed. And here she had thought that _her_ dreams tormented her.

For all that he seemed to see in her, she wasn't sure if Cain realized just how much she had been able to read from him. His story about his past had startled her, certainly, but his demeanor toward her and the few dreams she'd witnessed him experiencing told her volumes about him. She was slowly starting to realize that maybe she really could trust him; he had never asked for more information than she was willing to share, and readily gave her the space she needed when he could tell she was pulling away from him. And she gave him her freedom, even when she wasn't entirely certain that she wanted it. Every time he had asked her about something, it had been her choice; the amount of time she wanted to walk around town to buy clothes for herself, whether she wanted to visit his friends with him tomorrow, even whether she had wanted to travel with him in the first place. The only time he had ever forced information from her was when he asked her how old she was, and she knew that was a necessity for both their sakes.

Still, she didn't know whether she wanted to tell him any more than she already had. He didn't scare her now, not like that first night when she couldn't even sleep for worrying that he was there to drag her back to her parents. But earlier today, even though he had specifically said that he_ wasn't_ her father, he had said it in such a way that made her think that he knew Hank and Emily personally; hearing him say that had almost had her bolting from him that instant. She could tell he fought with himself after saying that, as though he had realized the effect it had on her.

If she told him more, about what her parents had done, would he change toward her? Would he suddenly decide that she was more trouble that he wanted to deal with? Despite not wanting to trust him immediately, she was starting to appreciate how safe she felt around him. He tried to never be out of her sight for very long, and she could feel his watchful gaze on her this afternoon even though she had been in her own little world as they lingered on the beach after their walk. If she told him more, and he sent her on her way, what would she do then? Even telling herself that he would most likely never do something like that did little calm her doubts. He seemed to want to help her, even without knowing exactly where she came from, and he seemed genuinely concerned for her well-being. She just didn't think he knew what else he could do for her.

Cain mumbled again, rolling over again to face away from her, but this time his voice was calmer; she could almost hear a laugh in his otherwise senseless words. A sudden image came to her, a flicker of the dream that had caused her to wake up tonight, and immediately her pencil found the paper and began drawing out the dream in strong, certain lines. Losing herself in her art, DG let her mind wander again for the time being as her . . . friend . . . slept nearby.

* * *

"Cain! You old fool, come here and let me get a better look at you!"

The ex-police officer grinned widely as the older man shook his hand with the strength of a grizzly. Bruce Olson was one of those rare people who he had befriended immediately upon meeting him, even though Bruce's loud and commanding voice gave him away as being the complete opposite of Cain's quieter and more reserved personality. Wyatt just felt more at ease around him, like he imagined he would around an older brother or a favorite uncle. Bruce and his wife Eleanor had never questioned Wyatt's nomadic travels, never pushed him to talk more than he wanted to, and seemed to understand that sometimes all the younger man needed was solitude and work. Cain thought it might be a nice change for DG; he wasn't sure if she had noticed, but almost everywhere they had stopped since they met there had been more than a pair of curious eyes, and more than one judgmental stare. They wouldn't have that here; Bruce and Eleanor accepted people for who they were, and made no judgments until they heard an entire story or argument.

"Bruce, good to see you again; sorry I couldn't stick around longer yesterday, but it seemed you were pretty busy anyway."

The older man nodded.

"We were, Cain; now that the weather's getting warmer we have more tourists coming through. You know me, I enjoy meeting new people as much as the next old fart, but some of the crazy people that come through here I just can't stand. Current company notwithstanding, of course; no offence meant."

"None taken," Cain chuckled, finally motioning to the young woman standing awkwardly beside him. "Bruce, this is DG; she's a fellow nomad, and for the time being my traveling companion. DG, this is Bruce Olson, a friend of mine for the past few years. We try to catch up every time I pass through town."

"It's nice to meet you, DG," Bruce's smile softened as he extended his hand toward her; he seemed to realize DG was feeling uncomfortable.

"You too, Mr. Olson," she replied quietly, fighting to keep her eyes up as she squirmed nervously. Despite his gentle smile, the older man had a piercing gray stare that seemed to look right through her.

"Please, call me Bruce. Only strangers and customers call me 'Mister' any more, but I don't like it; it makes me feel old." He turned and walked back toward his house, limping slightly on his prosthetic leg, and motioned to the two to follow him. "Come on 'round the back of the house; I'll show you which trees need to be dealt with and you can say 'hi' to The Pack before you get to work."

The three of them walked around to the backyard, and Cain hid a grin as he watched DG out of the corner of his eye. The girl couldn't take her eyes off the tall trees that grew just behind the house, and the house itself, a large log cabin that Bruce had built, certainly kept her attention as well.

Only part of the yard immediately behind the house looked like a normal backyard; Bruce had planted a few small flower beds and kept the grass neatly trimmed. Farther beyond the grass, however, it turned into woodland, and farther back a dense forest. Here and there among the trees, the pale domes of igloo-shaped doghouses could be seen, and furry shadows dashed around in the dim light.

"Would you like the honors?" Bruce asked, his eyes twinkling as he motioned toward the forest.

"I think I would." Cain glanced at DG. "You ready to meet the dogs?"

She looked a little bewildered at the question, but nodded. Cain turned back to the trees, sticking two fingers in his mouth and whistling loudly.

There was a split second of absolute silence, and Cain whistled again; immediately fifteen or so dogs burst from the forest, the fur on their faces slicked back and their tongues lolling out of canine grins. The ones that knew Cain milled around him excitedly or sniffed curiously at DG, though a couple that Cain didn't recognize were more interested in playing with each other than they were in the newcomers. There was one in particular, though, that Wyatt sought out even as he scratched behind numerous ears and was greeted in typical canine fashion. He grinned as he finally caught sight of her, a beautiful Bernese Mountain dog sitting at the outer edge of the giant gathering. She was a young dog, but had a calm and quiet disposition that was reminiscent of the man who had rescued her.

"There's my girl!"

The dog, who had been just barely wagging her tail, knew the moment he had spotted her. She bounced slightly, her tail sweeping the ground as she sat patiently. Cain fought his way through the crazy pack of dogs, dropping to his knees next to the dog and wrapping his arms around her. The puppy in her finally broke out, and she planted sloppy kisses on his face.

DG watched the whole exchange silently, a bemused look on her face. Cain had been as reserved with his emotions as she had in the few days they had known each other; seeing the giant grin that crossed his face now and when he had greeted his friend a few minutes ago seemed to transform the man. She had wondered if his amnesia didn't bother him more than he let show, and that maybe he felt he was protecting himself by not becoming emotionally attached. Kind of like her.

"You'll have to excuse Cain, my dear," Bruce chuckled. "He has more love for that dog than anything else I've seen. Found her as a pup out by the lake when he passed through here two winters ago. Must have been abandoned 'cause she was half-frozen and starving; he stayed here with her and took care of her, then stuck around for about four or five months so he could train her. Wouldn't take her with him when he left, though; said he didn't have the room to keep a dog with him, but promised to come back every year."

DG continued to watch as the dogs bustled around for a few more moments, then they calmed down and wandered off in small bunches toward the side yard or the woods. Cain stayed where he was for a while longer, though, and finally stood back up when his young dog was the only one remaining with the humans. His hand rested on the top of her head, scratching gently behind her ears. The dog looked up at him, adoration shining in her dark brown eyes, but she glanced at DG in the next moment and whined quietly. Cain's brow furrowed slightly, but he seemed more confused than anything.

"Go on, girl, it's okay."

The dog whined again, but stood and took a few tentative steps toward DG, stopping and glancing at Cain again before approaching the young woman and sitting in front of her. None of the three humans quite knew what to make of this situation; Wyatt and Bruce had never seen this particular dog act like this toward anybody but Wyatt, and DG had certainly never been approached in this manner by any animal. Cain observed the dog for a moment; she seemed to sense that something was wrong, or that something might be bothering the young woman standing before her.

"DG, this is Sasha. It's alright, she won't hurt you."

DG didn't move, though Cain could tell that it wasn't out of fear so much as out of uncertainty. Sasha took half a step forward, gently touching her nose to DG's palm. The young woman's fingers automatically curled, and the dog leaned her face into her hand. DG hesitated another moment, finally kneeling down next to the dog and running her fingers through Sasha's long fur.

Bruce motioned silently to Cain to follow him, and they left the girl and the young dog in the grass.

"Two of the trees are over here, Cain. One fell over and knocked the other one down. The third is over on the other side of the yard."

Neither of them mentioned DG or Sasha as they picked their way through the woods; it was an unspoken agreement that they would leave the young woman to her own devices, and Bruce knew it was really none of his business to ask what Cain knew about her. The older man finally motioned toward their left.

"There they are. Not the smallest trees in the place, but definitely not the largest either."

Cain sighed, eyeing the two fair-sized oaks that lay at their feet. They weren't saplings, but Bruce was right in saying that they could have been a lot bigger than they were.

"Everything still in your shed?"

"They sure are, Cain. Everything's just as you left it."

"I'd best get started then. This will probably take a few days at least."


	4. Chapter 4

**Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for joining us tonight. I'm Phoenix, I'll be your server. Our special tonight is a New Chapter with a side of Main Character Backstory.**

**Disclaimer: If you recognize it from anywhere, unless it's one of my original characters hopping in from another story, I don't own it. This story is being written for entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

Cain wiped sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand, resting the long handle of the splitting hammer against his hip as he tossed two more sections of log into the wheelbarrow. Giving himself a breather, he turned around and scanned the woods to see if he could spot DG. She had been very quiet the past few days, even more so than usual, and while he was glad that she was still coming with him to Bruce's he was still worried and curious about what was bothering her so much.

A large German Shepherd-type mutt, its coat flecked with leaves and smalls bits of tree bark, trotted past him but froze in the next moment. Its large ears rotated like two satellite dishes as it listened to the sounds of the forest.

"What's going on there, Icarus?" he asked the dog, whose name had suddenly come to him. He remembered now; this was the dog that Bruce had found up in a tree a few years ago. No one in town had reported a shepherd-mix puppy missing, and no one could figure out how he had ended up in a tree, so Bruce had taken him in and named him after the mythological boy who had fallen from the sky. Icarus looked up at him, a big canine grin spreading across his face, then turned his attention back to the trees. Another dog ran by a few yards away, and Icarus barked once before giving chase. Cain laughed, retrieving the bottle of water he had tucked into the fork of a nearby sapling. He knew a lot of people didn't approve of the large pack of dogs that Bruce allowed to live on his property, but since the older man kept all the dogs well-fed and sheltered and up-to-date on their shots Cain saw nothing wrong with it. The dogs were all happy and even-tempered, naturally seeing Bruce as the Alpha of the pack, and Wyatt felt that it was good that they were outside in the fresh air rather than in a cage at an animal shelter somewhere.

Cain took a swig of his water, watching as another small group of the dogs ran by with their tails wagging madly as they play-fought with each other. Despite her initial misgivings, it seemed that DG had enjoyed coming here the past few days. Bruce had showed her how to feed the large pack of dogs, and more than once he had seen her walking through the trees with Sasha and several other members of the pack trotting at her heels. But she had still been stoically quiet with him, as though her fears were coming back to her even here. Sasha seemed to be a comfort for her; the young dog was always the first to greet DG when they got there in the mornings and was practically glued to the Kid's side the whole day.

Taking another long drink, Wyatt eyed the work he'd finished. It had taken him the better part of the first day just to break down the trees into workable sections, and he had certainly lost many of the smaller branches to a feisty canine or two. Bruce didn't own a mechanical or electric splitter, so each of the oaks had to be split by hammer and wedge. Cain didn't mind so much; he appreciated the hard work that went into splitting logs. It gave him a chance to think.

He glanced up at the sky, which was slowly growing darker as the afternoon came to an end. He was just starting the second tree, and it was larger than the first one. He knew that he could get it done faster if he worked constantly through the day, but since Bruce was in no real hurry to have it finished and DG seemed quietly content to stay in this lakeside town Cain figured he would just continue as he had been, working for a few hours at a time and taking a long break to play with the dogs or just to sit and listen to the quiet of the woods.

A police siren screamed by on the nearby road, and as Cain took another swig of his water he idly wondered what could have warranted the police to come out all this way on an otherwise peaceful day. Another siren followed close behind the first, and it was followed by a third and then a fourth, piquing Cain's curiosity even further. He knew there were some more isolated houses farther up the road from Bruce's, and he figured the police must be heading in that direction for some reason or another. Propping his water bottle back in its tree, he bent to pick up the last few split sections of log and tossed them into the wheelbarrow to make his way back up to the house.

A startled bark caught his attention, and he stood upright to glance around for the source. He frowned slightly; that had almost sounded like a warning or fear bark, and those were hardly ever heard from the dogs in Bruce's pack. Only on the rare occasion that a wild animal imposed on the large acreage had Bruce himself ever admitted to hearing one of his dogs sound a warning. The dog barked again, causing Cain to spin around as he searched the trees. The panicked canine finally appeared, dancing nervously on the spot for a moment before turning an antsy circle, and Cain's eyebrows rose on his forehead.

"Sasha? What's going on?" His frown deepened as Sasha became more animated, pacing frantically as she gave a false start back in the direction she came and circled back to look at him again. She whined, the sound evolving into that nervous bark, and she turned her circle again.

He didn't get it; Sasha was by far one of the most mild-mannered of the dogs, and he had never seen her so agitated. Another siren screeched by on the road, and Sasha barked again, coming to nudge at him with her head. Suddenly, he understood.

"Sasha, what's wrong?" he asked, getting her attention as he used her name. "Sasha? Where's DG?"

The dog barked again, her front paws prancing in place before she took off at a trot, and Cain followed close behind. They passed several other dogs, many of them agitated but not as much as Sasha was, and Wyatt knew they could tell something was wrong.

Reaching the clearing of the back yard, Cain could see the lights from the police cars flickering through the trees between Bruce's house and the next one up the road. With the sparse leaves and the steadily darkening sky the flashing lights showed up as clearly as they would have if they were parked in the yard. He followed Sasha into the lightly wooded area on the other side of the house, finally finding DG huddled against a tree.

"Kid?"

"Leave me alone!"

Her scream brought him up short, giving him a moment to assess the situation. The girl was staring at him with wide, bright eyes, her pupils oddly dilated and a look of sheer panic masking her face. Her hands were held up as though she was trying to defend herself, though her breaths were coming in short, sobbing gasps. It took him a second to realize that she might have been looking straight at him, but she definitely didn't see him.

"Kid, easy," he murmured, trying to take a slow step toward her but stopping when she shuddered violently at the movement. This wasn't like that first night, when he had simply startled her; right now she was mentally somewhere else, and it wasn't anywhere either of them wanted her to be. Even Sasha seemed to be aware that something was not right with DG; she stood nervously at Cain's side and whined quietly.

"DG, it's alright. You're safe." He spoke slowly, trying not to make any moves that she could take as threatening. But he was lost as to how to bring her back to the present; he didn't know how to pull someone out of a flashback as bad as this.

"Please, don't," she whimpered, her panic dissolving into fear as she stared at him, and she started to visibly shake as she fought harder to breathe.

"Kid, look at me. You know me. You're safe; I'm not going to hurt you."

For a moment, it seemed that she recognized him; her posture relaxed ever so slightly and for a brief second her gaze actually seemed to focus on him. "You're alright, Kiddo," he murmured. "You're safe."

He tried again to take a step closer to her, but in an instant DG was trapped in her illusion again. She raised her arms to cover her face and head, turning sideways and pressing herself against the tree.

"NO!" the word was a pained cry, and she convulsed violently as though she was being struck. He could hear her visibly gasping for breath now, but she still cried out at her invisible attacker. "NOOOO!" She shuddered again, her entire body shaking, and her agonized cry was punctuated by her breathless sobbing.

He couldn't let this go on; she would pass out, make herself sick, or run off and possibly hurt herself in her panic.

"Wyatt? What's going on out here?" Bruce limped over from the direction of the house, his eyebrows high on his forehead in surprise.

"She's havin' a panic attack. I think the sirens and lights brought it on, but I can't get near enough to calm her down." He glanced at the older man, but his gaze was caught by the lights of another police car pulling up the driveway. He cursed silently. "Bruce, I need you to get over there and tell whoever that is to turn the flashing lights off and call an ambulance. If DG doesn't calm down soon we're going to have to get her to a hospital."

Bruce was off in an instant, and Cain turned his attention back to DG. She was still shaking like a leaf, completely oblivious of anything except what her mind was making her see. She wasn't crying out anymore, and it sounded like she was trying to rein in her tears but it was only interfering with her breathing as the spasms ripped through her.

"Kid, take it easy." He spoke softly, but at this point he wasn't even sure if she could hear him over her panic. Two more sirens, ambulances this time, wailed from down the road, and Cain was almost certain that they had already been on their way to the other house. He watched as one pulled in behind the police car, shutting its lights and siren off almost immediately, but another panicked scream from DG had him turning back to her.

"NO! LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Her face was flushed with fear and the effort she had to make just to breathe, but she was ready to run and he didn't want her to get hurt if she bolted into the woods and didn't know where she was. The shadows from the EMTs fell across them, startling her enough that she finally looked up but not enough that she was snapped back to reality. Her face crumpled into panic, her fevered gaze locked on the unfamiliar people that were approaching her.

"Oh . . . no," the words were almost whispered, a prayer to whoever might have been listening. In an instant she spun around to run away, but in the confusion of the dark yard and the bright lights she lost her footing. She went sprawling before he could catch her, a sharp _snap_ accompanying the sound of her hitting the ground, and she screamed again as she curled up into herself.

"Wyatt, what's her name?" one of the paramedics stopped at his side, unwinding a stethoscope from around her neck, and Cain was somewhat comforted that it was at least someone he knew.

"Her name's DG, she's eighteen years old."

"Alright, I know it won't be easy, but I need you to stay here while we work," Hannah patted his shoulder. "We can do more to help DG if we have fewer distractions."

Cain nodded perfunctorily, and Hannah ran to join the other EMTs that surrounded DG. The girl struggled as they strapped an oxygen mask over her face, trying to push them away and turn from the bright light they were shining in her eyes. Her yells were muffled by the plastic mask covering her mouth and nose, but tears ran from her eyes and he could tell that her panic was reaching its peak. One of the medics managed to wrap a blood pressure cuff around DG's arm, Hannah and another carefully lifted DG onto the hard plastic stretcher, and the fourth pulled a measure of some sort of drug into a syringe. The medic rolled up DG's sleeve to inject it into her arm, and all four medics stopped in their activity for a moment as dark bruises appeared from under the fabric; they exchanged glances before rolling up her other sleeve, finding similar marks just under her elbow. Cain frowned, briefly wondering if it was a trick of the light but immediately discarding the idea at seeing the EMTs reactions to it. The medic finally shook off his surprise enough to clean a spot on DG's arm and inject the contents of the syringe.

DG immediately calmed down, though she still struggled weakly as they loosely strapped her to the stretcher, her tears slowing to a trickle. The four medics carefully lifted her off the ground and carried her back toward the ambulance.

"Wyatt, you ride along with us," Hannah ordered. "It'll probably be a little while before she's completely past the attack, but she'll want a familiar face nearby."

Cain nodded, replaying the whole scene in his mind as he slowly turned to follow, Bruce falling in beside him.

"I can follow along in your truck, Cain, so that you have a way to get back to your hotel tonight. You left your keys by the front door, right?"

"Yeah," the former cop sighed, feeling slightly dazed as pieces of the past week finally began to fall into place. The medics carefully lifted the stretcher into the ambulance, quickly securing it before two of them hurried around to the front seats as Hannah and the fourth medic climbed in the back.

"Come on, Wyatt!" Hannah called, and he shook off his stupor enough to clamber in and sit down on the bench on one side of the ambulance.

"All secure, let's go!" Hannah hollered, slamming the doors with enough force to make them all jump. Cain watched in silence as the two EMTs hurried to check DG's blood pressure and temperature, and the one he didn't know, whose nametag read "J. Rink", inspected the girl's right hand critically.

"Possible wrist fracture, Spears," he reported, reaching into a cupboard overhead to grab a bracing board and an elastic bandage.

"Got it," Hannah replied, shining a tiny flashlight in DG's eyes. "Pupils are still dilated and reactive. Let's hook her up to an oximeter, she's still struggling to breathe. DG?" she tilted her head so she could address the young woman. "My name's Hannah, you're in an ambulance because you were having a very severe panic attack." DG's hazy stare focused slightly on the medic, but she still looked like she was fighting her way through a nightmare. "I want you to know that you're safe, and that nothing is going to happen to you, but we're taking you to a hospital just to make sure you're okay."

Rink taped a small sensor to DG's thumb, and immediately a small monitor started beeping. "Pulse is elevated; pulse ox is measuring at ninety."

"Cain, what can you tell me about her?" Hannah asked, her eyes glued to the chart she was filling out. "Anything on her medical history?"

"Nothing; I hardly know her."

The idea threw her, he could tell by the confusion that flickered across her face.

"Well, how long have you known her?"

"About a week."

Hannah frowned, fixing her stare on him. "She's like me, Hannah," Cain explained, letting the statement sink in. The medic's expression softened, and she nodded. "We ran into each other at a rest stop; she was jumpy, and practically scared of her own shadow. Since she was traveling by herself, I offered to let her stick with me as long as she wanted."

"Grisson!" Hannah yelled at one of the medics in the front. "Radio ahead and let them know that this is Masters' catch; the patient is a friend of Wyatt Cain."

"Got that, Spears," the medic in the passenger seat, apparently surnamed Grisson, replied and reached up for the two-way radio.

"Did you know she had been abused?" Hannah asked quietly, watching Cain for his reaction.

"I wondered," he sighed. "But I had a hard enough time just getting her to talk to me in the first place; I couldn't expect her to tell me everything about her past. It took her a few days to even relax enough that she wasn't jumping out of her skin at every sudden sound." He paused for a moment. "She always wore long sleeves, even the past couple days when it's been warm outside."

"Alright," Hannah replied, jotting down another note on the chart before checking DG's stats again. "Temp and pulse are still elevated, pulse ox is ninety-one, and pupils are still dilated and reactive. Grisson, I need an E.T.A, I'm hardly seeing any improvement!"

"E.T.A. is less than two minutes, Spears; we're making the last turn right now."

"Alright, I'm going to start an I.V. so she's ready to go in when we get there."

Hannah was just putting the last strip of tape on DG's I.V. when the ambulance pulled into the entrance of the emergency room. Cain could see a few doctors approach the vehicle and pull the doors open.

"What do we have?" an older woman asked, helping the others unload the stretcher onto a wheeled gurney.

"Caucasian female, eighteen years old, suffered a severe panic attack with possible wrist fracture. Oxygen and three of Versed given in the field; patient is still exhibiting anxiety and difficulty breathing," the medic surnamed Rink reported. "Temperature and pulse are elevated and stable."

"Alright, folks, let's keep it steady and bring her in to curtain area five. Get her started on saline and order a portable x-ray." She turned as Cain climbed out of the ambulance. "Is she another nomad, Wyatt?"

"Yeah, we met about a week ago," he replied, feeling less antsy now that he knew Dr. Masters was there and taking care of DG. She was an older woman, he guessed around the same age as Bruce, and understood and accepted his situation when he had needed to be patched up after getting clipped by a joy-riding teen on his first visit to town.

"I know you're probably the closest thing she has to family right now, but I can't let you back to the exam area until we've taken care of her and brought her stats back to normal. I promise we'll come get you as soon as we can."

"Alright," he sighed. He had figured as much.

"She'll be okay. You know she's in good hands here." The doctor patted his shoulder before rushing to join the others pushing the gurney into the hospital.

Wyatt followed slowly behind, glancing around at the waiting room before picking a chair for himself against one wall. It seemed that the place was quiet today; aside from another family camped out in one corner the waiting room was empty. He picked up one of the old magazines that were scattered around the waiting room, flipping through it for a few moments before tossing it aside and leaning back in his chair. Resting his head against the wall, he closed his eyes and tried to tune out the glare and electric buzzing of the florescent lights.

"Care to drown your thoughts in some bad hospital coffee, Cain?"

Opening his eyes, Wyatt found Bruce settling in to the chair next to him with two paper cups of coffee in his hands. "I parked your truck in the lot just off the ambulance bay. Ellie said she'd come and get me on her way home from work," the older man sighed.

"Thanks, Bruce." He accepted one of the cups and took a tentative sip. Actually, as far as hospital coffee went this really wasn't half bad.

Bruce stared at Cain for a moment, frowning slightly.

"You worried about her?"

The question caught Wyatt off guard, and he glanced at his friend in surprise.

"Is it so surprising that I am?"

"Yes and no; you've told me yourself that you have a hard time connecting to people, and I've seen how you are. But I've also seen you around those rare people who you seem to trust right away. What makes this kid so special?"

"I'm not sure. I think I was mostly concerned about her at first. She was scared of everything when I first met her, and jumpy as hell. I didn't want her to get hurt." He shrugged. "And I could tell she was running from something, or from someone. I guess I felt protective of her."

"I think she's lucky to have you for a friend, Wyatt, and lucky that you of all people were the one she ran into." Bruce downed some of his coffee, rummaging in his jacket pocket with his free hand and taking out Cain's keys. "I better give these to you before I forget to," he chuckled, handing them off to Wyatt.

"You think I'm doin' the right thing?"

Bruce had to think on that one for a moment, but he finally sighed.

"You know I believe that everything happens for a reason; that hasn't changed just for this situation. For whatever reason, you were meant to run into each other. That reason might not be apparent right away, but at some point you'll figure it out."

"I don't know entirely how to do this."

"What? Be a friend to someone?" Bruce barked a short laugh. "Cain, this isn't rocket science and you're not asking the girl to marry you. You know exactly how to be a good friend; it's just different this time because you've taken on responsibility for another living being, a person who clearly looks up to you and counts on you. DG's barely even spoken to me since we met, and I can see how much she looks up to you." He paused for a moment, thinking about what he was telling his friend. "Do you remember when you found Sasha?"

"Yeah."

"You had to be patient with her at first, because she wasn't sure if she could trust you right away. Before you even started to train her, you two had to take some time to figure each other out. But she's turned into the best-behaved dog in the pack. DG's the same way; she might still be unsure as to how much she can trust you, because she's probably still trying to figure you out as much as you're trying to figure her out." He stopped again, sighing quietly. "If I had to guess, she's had a pretty hard life up until now; nothing normal would cause her to react like that. You're gonna need to keep being patient with her, and let her learn to trust you."

A cell phone suddenly went off, and Bruce reached into an inside pocket of his jacket. "That'll be Ellie," he muttered, checking the caller I.D. before pocketing the phone again. "She said she'd meet me outside the hospital." He patted Cain's shoulder heavily as he stood up. "Let me know how DG is; feel free to take a couple days before coming back to finish the work if she doesn't want to come back right away. You still got that phone on you?"

"Out in the truck," Cain replied, nodding. "I left everything outside in the woods."

"That's alright." Bruce shrugged. "I'm not too worried about it. I'll see you when I see you."

"Thanks Bruce." Wyatt watched the older man limp out the exit, leaning back in his chair. He tried to drink some more of his coffee, but grimaced when he realized it had gone cold. Putting his cup on the floor behind one of the chair's legs, he made himself as comfortable as he could and rested his head against the wall behind the chair, closing his eyes; it wasn't so much an attempt to sleep as one to try to put all these puzzle pieces together under some semblance of peace.

"Wyatt?"

Before he knew it, he was opening his eyes to find Doctor Masters standing in front of him. Glancing at the wall clock, he came to the sudden realization that he had, in fact, dozed off; and for a good hour and a half, it seemed.

"Doc – how's DG?"

"She's better; she's still coming down out of the attack, but she recognizes where she is and she understands what happened." The doctor sat down in the chair that Bruce had occupied earlier. "We want to keep her here a little longer for observation, just to make sure she's stable, but I don't see any reason why she can't be discharged tonight." She stared at him for a moment. "How long have you known her?"

"A week; a little less, really."

"You know anything about her?"

"Nothing for certain, just guesses I've made."

"She had us put you down as her next of kin; did you know she would do that?"

"No; the subject's never come up," Cain replied, his eyebrows rising on his forehead. "How did it even come up here?"

"After she had calmed down enough for us to be able to talk to her, we had to start a file for her. At that point she was still unsteady, and she needed one of the nurses to help her fill out the forms. When she was asked for the name of someone we could contact if necessary, she asked us to put down your name."

"What does that mean, then?"

"It means that you would be contacted if she was brought to this hospital and you were not already accompanying her, and also that you could make decisions for her concerning her care if she was unable to make them herself."

"Me? I barely even know her; how can I be expected to make medical decisions for her?"

"Well, luckily this time you don't have to. But I think the message is reaching her loud and clear that if there's anyone in this world that she can count on it's you." At Wyatt's shocked look, Masters sighed. "Did you think that she wouldn't see you that way? From what she's told me, you've been looking out for her from the beginning."

"I guess it's a little strange to hear it being said out loud more than anything else. I don't regret offering her room in my truck, and I regret even less giving her the time and space she needed for herself. But I didn't go into this thinking I would end up being some kind of hero to her."

"Well, what if she doesn't see you as a hero?" The doctor grinned. "What if she just sees you as a friend? Perhaps as the only person she knows she can count on? Wouldn't that be enough of a reason for her to list you as family? That's how it worked out between you and Bruce's family; even though you didn't know them yet that first time you came through here, once you did know them you didn't hesitate for a moment to ask them if you could put them down as emergency contacts. If I remember correctly, Bruce and Ellie even agreed to act as your next of kin if the situation arose that we would need to talk to someone. DG apparently feels comfortable enough with you that she didn't think you would mind." She finally stood up. "Come on, she's been asking for you, and since she's calmer and more stable I can take you back to see her."

* * *

DG clenched her good hand, trying to stop herself from shaking so much; her adrenaline was still running so high she felt scared and disoriented and desperately wished someone would come in and sit with her.

Trying to figure out what had happened did no good; it only brought back frightening images of flashing lights and distorted faces that would send her panic into overdrive again and bring the nurses running for a second time. She knew Doctor Masters had meant well by having her brought back here to the walled-off areas of the ER, where it was quieter and they could lower the lights for her, but sitting in the near-silence and the grayish-dark kept her on edge almost as much as if there were crowds of people around her. Every shadow that moved past the door made her jump, and she felt more like a fool than she had after telling her nurse everything.

She hated herself for this, for being so stupid and so scared and getting stuck in this situation. Just for once, she wanted to be someplace where she felt safe and where she didn't have to be scared all the time. A rogue tear trickled down her cheek, and she rubbed it away half-heartedly. She didn't want to cry, because the second she did the wall she had been trying to build would come crashing down and everything would have to come out – again. And who would she tell? Who _could_ she tell? Cain? And then what – not only would he have to deal with some teenaged brat who had already given him more trouble than he had counted on but all of said-teenager's issues as well? She still didn't know what to think of him; he seemed to want to help her as much as he could, but at the same time he was hesitating either because he didn't know how to or because he really _didn't_ want to.

She rubbed angrily at another tear, suddenly feeling very alone.

A blurry shadow suddenly fell across the curtains that surrounded her bed, and she twitched nervously at the muffled sound of voices on the other side of the door leading to the hallway. She thought she recognized at least one of them, but they were talking quietly enough that she couldn't make out what they were saying. A soft knock was followed by the door opening slowly, and the shadows grew sharper as whoever was standing on the other side of the curtains approached.

"DG? Cain is here, just like you asked."

"Okay."

Doctor Masters murmured something else to Cain, and the door closed quietly.

"Kid?" his shadow sharpened more, but he was being careful about approaching her. He finally pulled the curtain back, his solemn gaze finding her after a moment to let his eyes adjust. She didn't really want to look at him; she felt exposed and vulnerable and even more like an idiot in front of this man who had to be thinking that she was far more trouble than she was worth. And she knew she couldn't hide anything from him anymore; he had to be making connections about her past now that he had seen what her long sleeves had been hiding up until now. Add into that the emerald green cast she had recently acquired plus the hospital gown and the oxygen tube in her nose and she practically screamed first-class headcase.

But Cain didn't say anything for a moment, and in the darkness she could almost see what looked like exhaustion and pity flicker across his face. He finally motioned to the hard plastic chair next to the gurney she was sitting on, pointing at the plastic bag that held her clothes. "It okay if I move this?"

"Yeah."

Cain moved the bag to the floor and sat down. DG's gaze dropped back to her shaking hands.

"How're you feeling?"

The girl sighed, flexing her fingers absentmindedly.

"A little freaked out; I don't know what happened. That's never happened to me before."

He watched her for a moment, uncertainty replacing the pity that had been there a minute before.

"Do you remember being at Bruce's house today? Do you remember playing with Sasha and taking care of the dogs?"

"Yeah, I remember all of that," DG murmured, reaching up to brush a tear from her cheek. "I just . . . I just don't get it. Do we have to talk about it?"

"Not at all; I'm just here because you asked me to be here. We don't have to talk about anything if you don't want to."

The girl took a wavering breath, clenching her good hand in an attempt to stop it from shaking.

"How long do they want me to stay here?"

"Just for a few more hours; I think they want to make sure you're okay before they discharge you." He watched as she brushed away another tear as it trickled down her cheek. "You want me to get anything for you? I can go get you a snack or something from the vending machines if you're hungry."

Some part of her wanted to say yes, just so that he would stop staring at her with that knowing gaze. But she didn't want to be alone again.

"No, I'm okay. I just want you to stay here," she muttered, trying to keep her voice from wavering. "That was really scary, Cain."

"I'm sorry, Kid. But it's done, it's over with; in a few hours we can get out of here."

One of the machines by her bed beeped, and the blood pressure cuff tightened around her upper arm enough that she squirmed. She hated that they'd had to wrap it right over her bruises. She didn't say anything else right away, waiting until the cuff loosened again.

"Did the doctor tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"That I put you down as my emergency contact?"

"Yeah, she told me."

DG shifted nervously, lifting her gaze to read the numbers on the monitors by her bed. As much as she'd wanted him here, if for no other reason than to have a familiar face nearby, she couldn't get herself to look at him.

"Is it okay? If it's not, you can say so."

"Of course it's okay; I don't mind. It caught me a little off guard, but I don't mind at all."

She blinked slowly, his admission suddenly relieving her tension and all at once she just felt _tired_.

"I didn't know who else to put. I don't . . . ."

"Kid?" he interrupted gently. She finally looked at him, biting her lip nervously. "It's okay. I don't mind."

She stared at him silently for a long moment before turning away, blushing as tears fell from her eyes. She brushed them away angrily, she didn't want to cry; she didn't want to let herself cry. Cain pulled his chair closer, uncertain as to what to do. "Kid, can you tell me what's going on? What has you so upset?"

She glanced at him again, trying to rub the tears away.

"I didn't think it would be like this," she answered quietly, her voice wavering as she worked to rein in her emotions.

"That what would be like this?" he asked patiently.

"Running away."

* * *

There it was; confirmation of what he had believed since they met. "I didn't even plan to run away, I just saw the opportunity and took it. I didn't plan for where I would go or what I would do; all I knew is that I had to get away from that house." DG's voice broke, and she took in a long breath to calm herself. "I couldn't stay there anymore; I just took my chance and took off. But I didn't know where I could go; I didn't know anyone outside of the small town where I grew up and I only had a couple hundred dollars to use for gas and food."

"Is that what you used to buy your clothes?"

"Yeah," she sighed, and paused again to take another slow breath. Resting her head back against her pillow, she stared at the ceiling. "I didn't think about what I would do if I got in trouble or in an accident; all I could think about was getting away and not getting caught. It took me all day just to get to the state border because I stopped and hid every time I heard a police siren." She turned back to him. "I decided I wouldn't let myself trust anyone, that I couldn't trust anyone if I wanted to avoid having to go back. I didn't try to stop being afraid of what I was doing, because I knew if I got too comfortable that it could get me in trouble; the second I stopped worrying could be the second I got caught and dragged back."

She was calming down, Cain was glad to see; finally talking about things seemed to be a good thing for her.

"That night we met, during the rain storm; how long had you been on the road?" he asked quietly.

"Just one day, almost twenty-four hours; I left late the night before, but it took me forever to get through town and to the interstate. Everyone in town knows what my motorcycle sounds like, and anyone who would have still been awake would have tried to stop me. I had to push it until I was far enough away."

"You had been on the road almost twenty-four hours already by the time you got to the rest stop, you barely slept that night, and you were still ready to hop back on your bike and take off the next morning? Weren't you worried about falling asleep while you were driving?"

"I had been awake for a full day and night before I ran away," DG murmured, playing listlessly with her I.D. bracelet. "By the time it got dark, I was exhausted from having to push my bike out of town and hiding it when I heard sirens; I could feel myself shaking as I was riding. But if that storm hadn't come in I wouldn't have stopped. The next morning, I didn't let myself worry. I just wanted to be back on the road so I could keep running."

"You said you didn't want to let yourself trust anyone; why me? If your urge to get far away was so strong that you were willing to risk falling asleep and possibly getting into an accident, why did you let yourself trust me?"

"I don't know," the girl shrugged halfheartedly. "It's not really just that I didn't want to trust anyone; I don't really feel like I _know_ how to. I've been around enough cops, and I could spot your invisible badge almost immediately; that put you high on my list of people not to trust. But after that first night, when you still hadn't called anyone about me or tried to drag me back, I found that I did trust you." She sighed. "It's kind of hard to explain."

"No, I think I get it."

"When you asked me if I wanted to ride along with you, I almost said no," she admitted. "I didn't want to give up even that small amount of freedom I had, that freedom to control my life for the first time ever. But some part of me knew at that point that I couldn't keep running on my own; I was tired, and even though I still didn't feel completely comfortable around you I thought I would be okay with you for a while." She sighed again, rubbing her eyes, but now Cain wasn't sure if it was more because she was tired or because she was fighting not to cry. "And now I don't know what to do next."

"You don't know what to do about what?" He couldn't hide his confusion at her statement, and she obviously caught the tone of his voice because she turned from him and fixed her eyes on the floor. He bit back a frown when he realized she thought he was angry at her.

"About all this," she finally replied. "Now that I'm away from home, which is what I wanted, I don't know what I can do."

He thought about that for a moment, sensing that she was ready for the conversation to be over.

"I don't think you have to make that decision yet, Kiddo," he murmured. She looked at him, her brow furrowing slightly. "You know you have space in my truck as long as you need it, or as long as you want it." He paused, thinking for a moment. "If you're not sure if you like it here enough to stay, I'm not even going to be done splitting those trees for a while and Bruce is letting us take a couple days before I go back to work; you have plenty of time to figure out if you want to keep running or if you're ready to stop."

DG's gaze fell back to her hospital bracelet, and she absentmindedly traced the pattern of the blanket covering her legs.

"Can we go back to the lake tomorrow?" she asked quietly, and Cain felt his eyebrows rise on his forehead.

"Sure, if that's what you feel like doin'."

DG blinked tiredly, falling silent again. After a few minutes she turned onto her side so she was facing away from him, burying her eyes against her pillow. Cain slowly stood, glancing at the back of her bed for a moment. "You want your bed down? You might be more comfortable."

She didn't respond for a moment, but finally nodded.

"If you don't mind," she murmured.

It was easy enough to lower the head of her bed, and Cain sat back down in his chair so she could try to sleep.

"Cain?"

"Yeah?"

"Can you stay?"

As if he would really leave her, especially now; but he knew that she probably worried that he would leave her on her own. Bruce had been right, he would have to be patient with the Kid and let her trust him in her own time. After tonight, he bet that she would probably close off from him again for a little while as she worked through what had happened and what they had talked about.

"Yeah, Kid, I can stay."


	5. Chapter 5

**You guys have been waiting for a long time, so I'm getting these chapters up as quick as I can (I don't have internet at home, so it often depends on whether I'm able to get anywhere with wifi access.) You get another dose of backstory on DG in this chapter, so hold on to your hats! The wind is picking up into some storm-force gales!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Tin Man or any of the characters. Anything or anyone recognized from anywhere else (except for my occasional story-hopping OC) don't belong to me. This story is written for entertainment purposes only.**

* * *

DG slowly trailed away from the truck, her eyes fixed on the gray waves sweeping across the beach, and Cain watched her as he locked the truck and tucked his keys into his jacket pocket. The girl was as silent as she had been since they left the hospital the other night, and behind her pale blue eyes he could almost see her mulling things over.

Another storm had ripped through yesterday, cancelling their plans to visit the lake and keeping them stuck in the hotel all day. He had asked the Kid if she still wanted to go, but a strange sort of fear had flickered across her face and she shook her head. She'd spent most of the day drawing, and from what he could tell she worked through several pages of her sketchbook. But for as long a day as it had been, she hadn't said a word to him. As he thought about it, it wasn't the kind of silence that told him she was closing herself off. She didn't seem uncomfortable or embarrassed about their conversation that night in the hospital; it was more as if she was thinking. He didn't blame her; not only was it more talking than she had done in almost the entire week since they had met, it was the first time she had really told him anything about herself. He knew how it was; sharing with someone on that level tended to leave him a little unbalanced, too. So he let her alone.

He zipped up his coat against the fierce wind and went to stand next to her. The sky was a deep gunmetal gray, the water murky as the waves churned up sand and stones still unsettled after yesterday's storm. More rain was definitely in the forecast.

"It looks so different," DG murmured, unable to hide the wonder in her voice. Cain knew exactly what she was talking about. It was one thing to see the lake on a calm day; it was quite another to see it when a storm was approaching. It might have been a large freshwater lake, but it could be as fierce and emotional as the ocean. DG glanced at him, and he smiled at her. Her brow furrowed for a moment, and she frowned, almost as though she was uncertain about something, and she returned her gaze to the raging water. They stayed there for several minutes, both silently watching the waves breaking over the sand and lost in their own thoughts. Then, with another nervous glance at Cain, DG took a step away and started walking down the beach; he followed, staying a few paces behind.

The girl stayed silent as they walked, and Cain allowed his mind to wander as he thought about the past couple days. He was still a little bewildered over DG's panic attack; he had never seen a person react so violently to the lights and sirens of police vehicles, at least not in the way that she did. He knew by now that the first car that stopped at Bruce's house had done so because the officers at the house farther down the road had heard the girl scream; in hindsight, he was more thankful for them showing up than he thought he would be. DG had been so completely lost in her hallucination that he didn't know what to do. She had been discharged from the hospital that night, but even then Doctor Masters had kept her longer than expected because her blood pressure took a while to come down to a normal level.

Then, of course, aside from thanking the doctor as they were leaving, the girl hadn't said a word since their conversation. She hadn't wanted to stop anywhere to eat, so Cain just drove back to the hotel. It seemed she was able to fall asleep easily enough that night, with the light on her side of the room still glowing and the TV on and muted, but when he woke up a few hours later the room had been dark. It had taken him a moment to remember where he was, and he looked around silently even though he wondered if she had up and run. But she was still there, sitting in a chair by the window and staring out at the dark roads and the headlights of cars as they drove by. He hadn't wanted to startle her, so he turned over and went back to sleep.

"I know why I trusted you."

Her quiet voice brought him out of his thoughts, and when he looked around they were almost a mile down the beach from where the truck was parked. DG had stopped walking, scuffing her sneakers in the sand as she buried her hands in her jacket pockets. She glanced at him briefly before dropping her gaze again. He watched her silently, ready to let her talk. She sighed, reaching up to brush a few wayward strands of hair out of her eyes. "You didn't make me give you the keys to my motorcycle."

Cain frowned, a little confused about what she meant, and she sighed again.

"That first day, after we got my bike into your truck; you didn't tell me to hand over my keys." Her forehead creased, making her look even more tired, and she finally looked at him. "My parents always took my keys if I didn't have anywhere to be. If I wasn't at school or at work, I had to tell them where I would be and be home within a certain amount of time afterwards."

"If they wanted that much control, why didn't they just drive you?"

She shrugged.

"They were too busy; dad had to run the farm and keep an eye on the farmhands, mom took care of most of the animals and was always running a stand at the local market. They didn't even want me to have the motorcycle, but it was used and cheaper than a car." She bit her lip nervously. "I had a curfew, a time that I had to be up each morning, and a time to be in bed each night. They didn't make me turn over the money I earned at work, but I had to tell them whenever I was going to buy something and show them my receipts and paychecks. I had to act, dress, and talk a certain way."

He watched her silently for a moment, not really wanting to ask about the proverbial elephant that was standing there on the beach with them but knowing if he didn't she might never get it out in the open.

"How long have they been hitting you, DG?"

She met his gaze as best she could, but Cain could tell she wanted to look away. She took a slow breath to calm herself, looking down at the ground.

"For as long as I can remember," she dragged one foot listlessly through the sand. "But it's gotten worse the past couple years. They used to only hit me for certain things; disrespecting them or another adult, getting in fights at school, not getting all of my chores done. But when I started middle school, it happened a lot more. They would hit me for bad grades or getting home later than I said I would. My mom would smack me to wake me up in the morning if I wasn't up when I was supposed to be."

"Why didn't your teachers do anything?"

"I wasn't allowed to say anything, and my parents were always careful not to hit me anywhere that would show up. If I said something and they found out, they would just hit me harder. My teachers never believed me, anyway; I went to a small school in the middle of nowhere, and every kid there was just waiting to be old enough to drop out – we all knew that we would never make it into college anyway. I was just one of a lot of troublemakers that the teachers had to deal with. They treated me the same way as every other kid when I got bad grades or fought; I'd get sent to the principal's office or detention. But stuff like that just made my parents hit me again." She blinked furiously, and Cain could see tears forming in her eyes. "I ran away because I couldn't take it anymore. I got a 'C' on a math test and my dad nearly blew the roof off the house. He took a belt to me, which he's been doing more since I started high school but he hasn't recently because my grades have been okay . . ." her voice trailed off as the tears finally trickled down her face, and she brushed them away as best she could. But this wasn't like the other night; she needed to cry and she wouldn't be able to fight it off this time. "I could barely move for the next few days. I had to call my friend to give me a ride to and from school because I couldn't stay on my motorcycle. Finally, once it didn't hurt as much, I just packed up what I could and left. I couldn't stay there anymore."

"Kid . . ." Wyatt started, but was cut off when DG suddenly stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him. He tensed up in surprise, his eyebrows rising on his forehead as he fought not to move away from her. Not only was the hug completely unexpected, he almost didn't know how to react to it. He couldn't remember anyone, _ever_, reaching out to him like this. It was a moment before his brain registered that this young woman he had taken under his wing was looking for comfort from the only person she _knew_ she could trust. He wrapped his arms awkwardly around her, suddenly aware that she could still be healing from her father's beating. _No_, he caught himself_. Not could be; she is still hurt. If there are still bruises on her arms they're probably elsewhere, too. All this happened less than three weeks ago._

"I couldn't stay, Cain, and I didn't know what to do. I couldn't put up with being hit anymore. My parents were so determined to turn me into some kind of perfect kid and all they ever did was hit me. They always told me it was my fault that they had to." Her voice broke and she cried harder.

"Kid, listen to me," he sighed, trying to figure out what he could say. He didn't honestly know how to react to this side of DG; he had become so accustomed to her keeping him at arm's length and staying emotionally distant. "You got out of there; you took that chance you had and ran. I'm sorry for what you had to live with, and for all that time you lost, but you were strong to put up with it as long as you did and strong enough to get away. No one can ever make you go back if you don't want to; you're free from your parents, that town and the abuse. I know you'll probably never be able to forget what your life was like, but you've got the rest of your life ahead of you and the only person you have to listen to is yourself." He sighed again as her arms tightened around him. "No part of what happened is your fault, your parents had no right to treat you like they did; there's no reason or excuse for it. You got to let it go; it'll eat you alive if you don't let it go."

She tightened her embrace again, her body shuddering as she cried. But she seemed to take his words to heart, because after a few more minutes her tears subsided and she relaxed. She finally stepped away from him, rubbing her good hand across her eyes even as her cheeks colored in embarrassment.

"Cain, I'm. . ."

"Don't be," he cut her off; he knew from the tone of her voice what she was about to say.

Her gaze flew to him, her eyes wide in bewilderment.

"What?"

"You don't have to be sorry for having to cry. I'm your friend, DG, and that means you can tell me anything and you don't have to be embarrassed or apologetic."

She frowned slightly, but she nodded and he could see her mulling that idea over. "Do you want to keep walking? Or should we start heading back?"

DG sighed, turning to look back in the direction they had come from. The small public access where they had left the truck was barely even visible from here.

"Let's keep walking."

Cain nodded, glad that she felt she could make a decision without asking him for permission, and followed a few paces behind as she continued down the beach. They passed by lakeside houses and bike paths leading into the forest, more public access roads and wide stretches of beach that were seemingly encrusted with water-worn stones.

"I don't know if I'm ready to stay in one place yet."

Cain's eyebrows rose on his forehead, but he said nothing; he wanted to see what DG would say. She stopped again, crouching down to pick up a few rounded stones. "I've spent years wanting to get away from that town; it felt like I was in prison. Now that I'm finally out of there, I don't know if I want to stop seeing new places yet." She stood, brushing sand off a handful of rocks, dropping a couple back on the ground and pocketing the others, and she glanced nervously at him.

"Whatever you want, Kiddo; you know that you've got space in my truck as long as you want or need it."

DG nodded slightly, the look in her eyes speaking volumes of what was on her mind.

"Cain, can I ask you something?"

"If you'd like."

The girl bit her lip uncertainly, like she wasn't sure if she wanted to ask him anything.

"Why didn't you ever take Sasha with you?"

Cain's eyebrows rose so fast they almost jumped off his forehead; not that he cared that DG had asked him a personal question. If nothing else, he was glad she was starting to feel more comfortable around him. He was more surprised that she felt comfortable enough to ask him so directly. Misreading his expression, DG rushed to amend her nosiness as a blush bloomed across her face. "I'm sorry."

"No, Kid, it's alright, I don't mind. I'm glad you feel comfortable enough to ask."

DG bit her lip again, still eyeing him warily.

"I've just been wondering. Bruce told me that you love Sasha more than anything, but you never take her with you when you leave; so I don't get why you didn't seem to mind asking a runaway kid you didn't even know if she wanted to travel with you."

Cain sighed, nodding slightly as he started to understand. Of course; DG wasn't asking about Sasha, she was trying to figure out where, or why, she herself fit into this part of his life when there were obviously others he knew better who probably still weren't as close to him. She wasn't asking why he didn't seem to value Sasha; she was asking why he valued _her._

"It's because I knew exactly what you were going through. Probably not in the same way you did, but I know how it feels to not know where you belong and to not feel safe. Sasha was in our shoes once, too, but she found a place to live where she feels safe. Neither of us have found that yet; I figure us sticking together is the closest either of us will get to it until we find some place that feels like home."

DG frowned, turning to stare back out at the water. "I was worried, too; I knew there was something bothering you, and since you hadn't slept the night before I didn't think you should be travelling on your own. I figured you were running from something, like I was, and I didn't think you would want to get into a situation that might send you back."

The Kid stayed silent, scuffing her toes across the layer of stones they were standing on, and she finally glanced back in the direction they came from. There was a definite feel to the air now, the smell of rain was blowing past them and clouds were still gathering.

"Let's go back to the hotel."

"Alright, Kid."

* * *

Cain sighed quietly as he flipped through the TV channels, not necessarily looking for something interesting so much as background noise he could stand to listen to. He glanced at DG out of the corner of his eye; she was curled up in one of the armchairs by the window, her sketchbook open across her lap. It was with minor surprise that he realized she was drawing with her _left_ hand, but considering how little he really knew about her he didn't dwell too much on it.

They had made it back to the hotel parking lot just as the skies opened with a torrential rain. He had been ready to jump out of the truck and dash across the parking lot when he realized that DG was shaking so much she could barely unbuckle her seat belt. Worried that she was about to have another panic attack, he'd spent several very long minutes getting her to calm down. Now, thinking back to it, he remembered that she hadn't wanted to go outside yesterday, and how she had hesitated when they'd first left the hotel this morning. He shook his head as he wondered how he hadn't realized it before; besides being scared that someone had followed her and her general distrust of people, the Kid was terrified of storms.

Lightning flashed outside the window, followed so closely by a rumble of thunder that the windows rattled and Cain knew they were dead in the middle of the storm, but DG started so violently that her sketchbook and pencil fell to the floor and she immediately started shaking again.

"Kid?" Cain frowned, watching her for a moment before standing and striding over to her, kneeling in front of her chair and tilting his head to try and make eye contact with her. "Kid, can you look at me?"

Her eyes met his, but she curled up into herself even more. Being this close, Cain could see the dark bruises showing from under her sleeves and collar; it was the first time DG had purposely worn a short-sleeved shirt around him, and she didn't have her jacket or dim lights to hide the marks on the back of her neck. The tiredness in her eyes was just as noticeable, no doubt making her fear worse, and he mentally kicked himself for not realizing she hadn't been sleeping very well. "Hey, you're okay; you're safe."

She nodded silently, but she couldn't seem to stop shaking. He pulled the curtains closed, hoping that not being able to see the rain would help her a little. "I'll be right back." He stood and went into the bathroom, wetting a washcloth under the warm tap and wringing it out then filling a glass with water. DG's hooded sweatshirt was hanging on the doorknob, and he draped it over his arm as he went back out to their room. "Easy, Kiddo," he murmured, setting the glass on the small table near her chair and laying the warm cloth across the back of her neck, not missing how she shuddered. "You're okay. Take some deep breaths and calm down."

DG sighed, trying her best to curl up even smaller in the chair, her hand gripping the arm rest until her knuckles turned white. Not being able to see out through the window seemed to be helping, but the curtains couldn't block out the thunder.

"I don't know why storms scare me so much," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

"I don't know either, Kiddo; it's just one of those fears that can't be explained. Why were you sitting by the window if it scares you?"

"I don't know; it's something I've always done. Even when I was little, when there was a storm I would sit by the window as long as I could stand to; I guess I always thought it would help if I could watch storms, to try and figure out what made me scared of them. It's never really helped all that much, though. But it's always worse if I'm not somewhere safe; that night we met, I'm surprised that I had been thinking clearly enough to get to the rest stop. I could tell that there was a storm coming, and it's like my adrenaline kicked in before it even started to rain."

"But you were also tired, which probably didn't help."

DG caught what he was saying.

"I haven't been sleeping much," she admitted quietly. "It still hurts too much to really sleep comfortably. I know it makes my fear worse when I'm tired, but even taking something for the pain doesn't help." She rubbed her eyes.

Cain looked carefully at the way she was sitting; even now, her back was barely touching the back of the chair and she was leaning on the arm rests as little as possible. Vaguely he wondered just how bad her injuries were. "Look, Cain, you're going to ask anyway; go ahead, I don't mind."

"What?" He frowned slightly, noting the frustration in her voice. This was more than just her being tired.

"I can read people, too, you know. I can tell what you want to ask." She rubbed her eyes, finally looking at him. "You can ask, if you want to. Really, I don't mind."

He had to think about that for a moment, not wanting to say anything right away in case he misunderstood her. But there was a silent plea in DG's eyes, like she wanted him to ask so she had a reason to tell him.

"How bad is it, DG?"

She sighed, almost in relief although she bit her lip nervously. She slowly pulled up her sleeve, exposing her entire arm and her shoulder, and Cain had to take a mental step backwards as the entire extent of her injuries settled on him. Dark, half-healed bruises wrapped around her upper arm, spreading up over her shoulder and down onto her collarbone before disappearing under her shirt again. It was no wonder that the Kid still hurt so much; he was surprised that none of her bones had been broken.

"It's the worst on my arms and across my shoulders," she murmured. "It's all spread together. Down around my waist it's just stripes."

Cain frowned, still struggling a little to wrap his brain around this. If it looked like this three weeks after it happened, how bad had it been immediately after her father had beaten her? Even now, he could see the swelling on her shoulder and a few places on her arm; there was nothing this girl could do that wouldn't aggravate her injuries somehow.

DG shuddered, and when he looked back at her he realized she was crying. She pulled her sleeve down, brushing the tears from her eyes, and took her sweatshirt from him. She blushed slightly as she shrugged into the shirt, wrapping her arms around herself, and she turned away from him to try and hide her tears.

"I had to tell my friend Arianna that I tripped down the stairs, but I know she didn't believe me. My father threatened to beat me again if anyone found out what happened." Her voice held out for a moment longer before she broke down, her entire body shaking as she finally let go of what had happened to her.

Cain sighed, listening to the young woman cry but not knowing what he could do. She might have hugged him earlier, but it wasn't something he was comfortable returning even if it could comfort her.

"I'm so sorry, Kid," he finally murmured. He reached up and stroked her hair, the best gesture he could manage. "I know it's hard to remember what happened, but the more time you give yourself the easier it'll be to let go of the past." He sighed again as she scrubbed fiercely at the tears streaming down her cheeks. "I don't want you to feel like you have to hide this from me; it's nothing to be ashamed of and holding onto it will just make it worse. I wasn't lyin' earlier when I said it'll eat you alive; you try and ignore something this big and it'll just fight back."

DG's tears were slowing already, but she still wouldn't look at him. This wasn't something she could expect to let go of all at once, not after living with cruelty and neglect for eighteen years. Now that these gates had been opened, most of their days would probably be like today; her pain would bubble up in bits and pieces and she would just have to work through them as they hit her. "I know you feel like you can't trust anyone, and I know what it feels like to think you're alone in this world. After everything you've been through, trusting people isn't going to come easily. But I hope you know you can trust me. Whenever you feel like you need to deal with this, or anything, if there's something you need from me you can just let me know."

She nodded slightly, but she didn't uncurl from her position or turn toward him; thunder still rumbled outside and he could see her shiver. "Let me get you something for the pain, Kid; I think if you can get a good night's sleep you'll feel a lot better."

"It's not even night yet," she mumbled, and Cain chuckled at the note of humor in her voice.

"Well, these aren't going to put you to sleep or anything. But what have you been taking?" He stood and grabbed his day-pack from near the door, bringing it back and sitting down in the other chair as he rummaged through it.

"Just aspirin; all it's really been doing is taking the edge off."

"These are a little stronger; it's extra-strength, so maybe it'll help." He finally found the plastic bottle, twisting off the cap. "Is aspirin all you're used to?"

"That's all I was ever able to take, my parents wouldn't buy anything else, and since they always checked my receipts I could never buy anything for myself."

"Did you take any recently?"

"Last night, before I went to bed," she sighed, shaking her head.

"Let's see if just one of these works, then; you may not need any more if you're used to just aspirin." He dumped one of the caplets out into his hand and replaced the cap.

"Can I see that?" she asked quietly, nodding at the bottle, and he held it out to her. She took it quietly, opening it to look at the other pills before closing it again and quickly reading the label before handing it back to him. Cain felt the corner of his mouth twitch slightly; the Kid might have trusted him more than most other people, but she was still wary of things she didn't know. As little freedom as she had growing up, she certainly wasn't naïve; she had a good head on her shoulders.

He set the pill next to the glass of water, wanting her to take it when she was ready to, and brought his duffel back over to the door. Turning back around, he paused as his gaze caught the usual array of take-out menus and restaurant listings sitting on the corner of the TV table. He didn't really feel like ordering take-out again, and he had a hunch that even the kid was getting tired of Chinese and pizza.

"You want to go over to Bruce and Eleanor's tonight? They always extend an open invitation to join them for dinner any time I'm in town, and I bet that Sasha's been wondering where you are."

DG glanced at him uncertainly, just out of the corner of her eye. "It sounds like the storm's going to let up pretty soon. I can give them a call if you'd like to go."

The Kid nodded silently, frowning a little, before curling back up and turning away from him. Cain sighed quietly, knowing there would be a lot of these sorts of exchanges in the future. It would just have to be one step forward and two steps back until DG came to terms with her past.

* * *

The room was dark when Cain's eyes opened, the only sounds coming from the clock on the wall ticking and the rumble of the ice machine down the hall. The neon glow of the alarm clock next to his bed told him it was three in the morning. DG had left her light on when they'd finally gone to bed, and just like before he wondered if maybe she had run off. He turned over slowly, trying to keep quiet in case she was sleeping, and let his gaze drift to the ceiling. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he found his tiredness ebbing away, and he finally spotted DG in her usual chair by the window. He sighed, not wanting to disturb her, and let his mind wander to the dreams that had drifted through his mind before he woke up.

"I know you're awake," the young woman murmured from her chair. "You don't have to stay quiet."

"Huh?" He lifted his head to look at her, one eyebrow rising on his forehead.

"Your breathing changed about a half hour ago, and it just changed again when you woke up."

Cain sighed again, propping himself up on his elbows as he blinked the last bits of sleep from his eyes.

"You hurtin' again, Kiddo?" The stronger painkiller seemed to be working alright for her; she had been much more comfortable while they were having dinner with Bruce and Eleanor, and once the rain had completely stopped she had spent some time with Sasha and the other dogs in the backyard. Even so, by now it had been several hours since she had taken anything; it was bound to be wearing off soon if it wasn't already.

"A little; but that's not what woke me up."

Cain finally sat up, watching the young woman curiously. She was feeling uncomfortable again, but he bet that it wasn't caused so much by her injuries as by the unfamiliar territory she had tread into during dinner. Bruce's wife Eleanor had doted on the young woman like a mother would, and while it had certainly caught DG off guard at first she quickly opened up to the first maternal figure she had probably ever known. Wyatt knew that the Olsons had only ever had sons; three of them, all of them grown and gone, and while he didn't know just how much of her past DG had shared he could tell that Eleanor had taken the young woman under her wings like a mother hen. It had been at Ellie's insistence that they had offered the spare bedrooms in their house to Cain and DG for the rest of their stay, and even though the young woman had hesitated to agree Cain accepted immediately. It wasn't because their hotel stay would be too expensive by the time the work on the trees was done, goodness knows he had more than enough to pay for it, but he had a hunch DG would appreciate being around another woman for a while. Maybe Eleanor would be able to help heal DG's fear of her past. They would check out of the hotel in the morning.

"Everything alright?"

"I guess so."

That was as good an answer as anything, he figured, so he swung his legs over the side of his bed and slowly stood. Joints from his toes to his neck popped loudly, and even though he cringed at the sound he chuckled good-naturedly at DG's quiet chuff of laughter.

"Glad to know I'm able to provide some sort of comic relief for you at this hour of the morning," he grumbled teasingly.

"Stiff much, Cain?"

"Nah; I just tend to be crunchier in the mornings." He half-shuffled, half- stumbled through the dark room to the bathroom, splashing cold water on his face. He left the bathroom light off, since their eyes were already accustomed to the dark. "I'm probably up for the day; if you're up too I'm gonna make some coffee if that's alright."

"Sure, I don't mind."

Once the coffee machine was up and running, Cain filled a glass with water and brought another pill over for DG.

"Here's this if you want it; I don't recommend drinking any coffee right away though."

"What, an ex-cop like you hasn't noticed that I don't drink coffee?" she asked, the corner of her mouth twitching up into a grin. One eyebrow rose on Cain's forehead as he considered that; now that he thought about it, he had never actually seen her drink coffee. She'd been up before him most days that they'd been here, and after the first morning the coffee pot had been running when he woke up.

"Well, you put one over on the cop, didn't you?" he chuckled, shuffling back over to the coffee machine and pouring himself a cup.

"It's a gift I have; I used to drive the state troopers and town police crazy."

"I'll have to keep that in mind," he laughed again, joining her near the window and easing back into the other chair.

She tilted her head as she stared at him, her expression blank but her eyes trying to read him.

"Was it a dream that woke you up?"

"Yeah."

"Do you mind if I ask you what it was about?"

Cain was mildly surprised at this; DG seemed genuinely curious about something.

" 'Course I don't mind, but this time there's not much I can tell you. I've been having them for as long as I can remember, but I can't always hold on to what they're about. Any time there are other people, their faces are all blurry and they sound like they're speaking under water. Mostly it's the emotions that stick with me when the dream's over."

"What kind of emotions?"

"Sometimes happiness, and the feeling of being with a family and having a home. Other times it's fear and anger, or loneliness," he paused, taking a sip of his coffee. "Tonight was one of those dreams; but it wasn't just anger, it was rage, and helplessness. Like I was being forced to watch something that I couldn't change."

DG frowned, flexing her fingers thoughtfully as she turned and stared out the window.

"Does it ever get easier? Not knowing where you really belong?"

"It does, but it takes time." He regarded the young woman, wondering if this line of questioning was heading somewhere. "You got something on your mind, Kid?"

"Sort of," she murmured, her brow furrowing slightly as she thought. "I get dreams too, sometimes. But I always seem to remember what my dreams are about." She reached into the shadow of the chair's arm rest, drawing out her sketchbook and holding it out to him. But Cain hesitated.

"Are you sure, Kid?" He had never asked about what she drew, had never expected her to tell him or show him anything. He knew it was an escape for her to be able to draw, and he tried hard to give her the space she deserved when she disappeared into her thoughts for a while.

"Yeah, I'm sure. It's easier for me to show you than to explain it."

He finally took the book from her, opening it to the first page. Splashed across the paper, in detail so perfect it almost could have passed for a photograph, was a bird's-eye view of a brilliant castle surrounded by a Victorian-style city. The next page revealed something like a town from an old western film, but with a large billboard of a man pushing a lawn mower and words welcoming the reader to some place called Milltown. Another page held a view of a lake shore, mountains rising up in the background and a pavilion with a swing. "Whenever I dream of these places, I always feel like I belong there. I feel safe, and loved." Cain turned another page, and found himself staring into the dark entrance of a cave. The next drawing was the long face of a bear, its eyes glistening in some imaginary light source. The next page was of a pyramid-shaped pile of apples sitting on the ground. "Other times, I feel like I'm in danger, or that something's chasing me. And sometimes, they just don't make sense. The dream with the cave is the one I have the most."

Cain kept paging through the book, taking in each drawing as he came to it. There were drawings of more palaces, some sitting in the middle of frozen mountain ranges and others accompanying the pavilion by the lake. Others were variations of the previous drawings; more images of the cave, sometimes filled with flying bats or lined with blazing lanterns, and pictures of the bear standing on its hind legs or running past with an apple in its mouth. At least three drawings were of hot-air balloons. "At least with you, there's a chance that your dreams are memories. I know mine aren't. My whole life I've been confined to that one town, I would remember something like staring down a bear. But . . . ." her voice trailed off, and she bit her lip nervously.

He glanced up at her silence, watching her for a moment.

"What is it, Kid?"

"There's one, I don't draw it very often because I _know_ it's a real memory. It's the earliest memory I really have, but I don't know if even that makes sense because I was about five years old when it happened. I feel like I should have at least something from before then, but it's like every part of my life before I was five was just cut out." She shook her head.

Cain didn't say anything right away, knowing he couldn't push her to share anything she wasn't ready to divulge, and went back to paging through the book. "You're going to think I'm crazy," she finally murmured, and he looked up at her again.

"Well, I'm not really one who should talk, am I?" he chuckled wryly. DG stared at him for several long moments, her entire demeanor radiating with uncertainty, but she finally held out her hand for her book. He handed it back to her wordlessly, and watched as she flipped through several more pages.

"The only other people I've ever told were my parents," she sighed. "I was seven. They accused me of lying. I just wanted to ask them about it, and all I got for it was a slap across the face and no supper for two nights." She finally stopped at a drawing, but in the darkness Cain couldn't see it clearly from where he was sitting. "I've spent my entire life wondering where this memory came from, wondering when it happened and why I'm so certain that it did. Up until I met you, I didn't even think it was possible."

"Me? What did I do?"

She shrugged half-heartedly.

"You didn't do anything, really; it's just like our dreams making us feel like we belong somewhere, or the fact that we're both running from something we can't put a name to. It's another weird thing that we have in common." She handed the book back to him, and almost as soon as he caught his first glimpse of the drawing of a dark funnel cloud he became overwhelmed with the sense of déjà-vu.

"My first memory is of getting caught in a tornado."


End file.
